Dino S. Cervigni (1)
Literature, Criticism, Ethics: An Introductory Essay with Some Personal Reflections, Vol. 19 Introduction
I began writing this essay on September 10, 2001. I returned to it on the morning of the following day, September 11, when my wife called me from her office, telling me frantically to turn the TV on. For the next several hours, I followed on the screen what journalists immediately called the most tragic and disastrous military attack on the United States of America since Pearl Harbor in 1941. As I, together with all people of good will, mourn and pray for the countless victims of such a horrific tragedy and condemn all forms of violence for whatever purpose and cause, I have also become convinced, more so than ever before, of the ethical imperative incumbent upon all people, individually and collectively, and of the special privilege and duty befalling all of us, as educators, to become aware of its far-reaching implications in all aspects of our profession. I also invite all of you to work for peace and join me in a sincere prayer for peace: a deeply felt invocation addressed to the Almighty, each other, and the entire world community, best expressed in the following words of the Bible: "[...] pax in terra hominibus bonae voluntatis" ("[...] peace on earth to people of good will" Luke 2:14).
1. Literature Criticism Ethics: The Ethical Imperative (2)
This 2001 issue of Annali d'italianistica, devoted to the study of the interconnections of literature, criticism, and ethics, is the most challenging of the journal's nineteen monographic volumes published thus far. All of us easily comprehend the reasons of this great challenge. It is due neither to literature nor the practice of criticism, for we, as scholars of literature and practitioners of various critical approaches, always accept, even welcome, the difficulties arising from our scholarly investigations; rather, it is due to the third dimension added by the 2001 issue of AdI, to the reciprocal interplay of literature and criticism, namely, ethics. The study of the ethical implications connected with the analysis of literature, the practice of criticism, and our profession as educators, in fact, makes most of us feel somewhat uneasy, just as, or even more so than, the study of the sacred and religious aspects of literature and poetry does. (3)
And yet, as people who live in a community and depend on human society, we cannot escape the ethical issue. Simply stated, ethics concerns everything we do as humans, as can be easily understood even from the term's strict etymological explanation, whether we employ the one derived from Greek (ethics < ethos) or from Latin (moral < mos, moris), both terms connoting the "custom," "habit," and "habitual character" of people. Any attempt at placing ourselves outside or beyond the ethical sphere, therefore, would be tantamount to situating ourselves outside or even above the human community. The question, nevertheless, remains whether the ethical issue that confronts all of us every day of our lives, is immanent to our nature as individuals and to the human community within which we live, or, rather, whether this ethical issue transcends each and all of us because it comes from outside or above us; or, also, whether it originates in each and all of us, individually and collectively, while also finding its superior or ultimate sanction outside each and all of us, in the supernatural and divine. (4)
The interplay of literature, criticism, and ethics has always been present, albeit in varying degrees, in Italy's literary culture, since its medieval beginnings, rooted in the Western ancient and Judeo-Christian traditions, until contemporary times, during which we have experienced an explosion and implosion of -isms, whose dizzying effects have illumined a few of us, alienated several, and confused many.
Then, today, deeply shaken by the tragedy that has affected the United States of America and the civilized world, we are forced to reflect upon our role as educators and scholars and to understand the connections inextricably linking the artistic product, its critical assessment, and the moral issue inseparable from all human undertakings.
From an historical perspective, ethics, however differently formulated, has always played a constant and fundamental role in all critical endeavors. In this regard Wayne C. Booth writes: "Of all the possible critical responses to poetry, the one with the most sustained written tradition is the question, 'Will the experience of knowing this poem be good for me or my society?'" (384). Booth's moral-critical question presupposes the moral-critic's ability to probe into the ethical nature of the literary product itself.
While undergoing revisions and attacks from Plato to modern times, ethical criticism, nevertheless, all but disappeared in scholarly literature from the Positivist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries until recently. Then, a few decades ago, the ethical debate suddenly re-emerged, perhaps in connection with the rise of feminist and ethnic studies, the investigations into the role of the literary canon, and/or the renewed interest in moral concerns and issues in general.
In nearly two decades of scholarly publishing, AdI has already investigated many of the topics pertaining to ethical concerns in literature, from feminist studies (AdI 7 [1989]) and mystical writings by women (13 [1995]) to autobiography (4 [1986]), anthropological approaches to literature (15 [1997]), the modern and the postmodern (9 [1991]), and cultural studies (16 [1998]). (5) By devoting its 2001 issue specifically to the interplay of literature, criticism, and ethics, AdI intends to focus directly on the role of the ethical issue in the writing and reading of literature: in brief, the function of what we can call ethical hermeneutics. Steeped in the Judeo-Christian and ancient classical traditions throughout its historical development, Italy's literary culture may be viewed as a continuous debate on the dignity of human beings, their duty in society, and their lives' ultimate purpose. One only needs to recall, at the beginning of Italy's cultural history, Saint Francis's Cantico delle creature and, very recently, Roberto Benigni's reflection on life's beauty and tragedy in La vita è bella. It is a well-known fact that for Dante Alighieri, relying on Aristotle and Christian writers and philosophers, ethics played a preeminent role in all speculative as well as practical endeavors (Convivio 2:14). Nonetheless, the ethical concerns underlying most, if not the whole, of Italy's literary culture came under attack during Italy's fairly recent history, likely because of Croce's idealism as well as other, more difficult to determine, indigenous or mostly foreign -isms. More recently, the writings of some contemporary theoreticians, such as Lévinas, Ricoeur, Derrida, Foucault, etc., have unquestionably offered some impetus to the resurgence of contemporary ethical investigations. In the January 1999 issue of PMLA on literature and ethics, for instance, these contemporoary thinkers offered most of the theoretical framework for the contributors' essays. At the same time, one finds it difficult to accept the notion that only those 20th-century thinkers mentioned above can provide a valid ground for current inquiries into ethical concerns. One cannot but hope, therefore, that Italy's literary culture, with its strong attachment to its pluri-millenary tradition, may offer an appropriate and balanced ground for inquiries into the role of ethical hermeneutics. Unquestionably, the essays of young and senior scholars who have responded to my invitation and have made this issue possible can help all of us reflect on the multiple relationships of literature, criticism, and ethics, and especially on the moral imperative that falls upon all of us.
2. A Forgotten Harmony: The Medieval Concordance of Esse, Verum, et Pulchrum
Italy's literary culture prides itself on a pedigree of the highest spirituality, religiosity, and ethical concern. In the so-called "Cantico delle creature," or "Laudes creaturarum," often viewed as the first poetic text of Italian literature, Saint Francis invites man to be in harmony with God,
Altissimu, onnipotente, bon Signore,
tue so' le laude, la gloria e l'honore et onne benedictione.
nature,
Laudato sie, mi' Signore, cum tucte le tue creature,
and one another,
Laudato si', mi Signore, per quelli ke perdonano per lo tuo amore
e sostengo infirmitate et tribulatione.
Beati quelli ke 'l sosterranno in pace,
ka da te, Altissimo, sirano incoronati.
(vv. 1-2; 5; 25-26, Antologia della poesia italiana 1:22-24)
In fact, in medieval times, not just saints and poets like Saint Francis, but also philosophers and theologians like Saint Thomas proclaim, in the words of Umberto Eco,
that God was being, goodness, and beauty, and that things participated
in these attributes.
(The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas 29) (6)
Striking as it may sound to our contemporary way of thinking, Saint Thomas even suggests that humans, in pursuing being, pursue not only the good and the beautiful but also peace:
[...] appetitum terminari ad bonum et pacem et pulchrum, non est eum terminari in diversa. Ex hoc enim ipso quod aliquid appetit bonum, appetit simul et pulchrum et pacem [...]. Unde quicumque appetit bonum, appetic hoc ipso pulchrum.
([...] if appetite terminates in good and peace and the beautiful,
this does not mean that it terminates in different goals. By the
very fact of tending to good, a thing at the same time tends to the
beautiful and to peace [...]. So anyone who desires the good, by
that very fact desires the beautiful.)
(De veritate 22, 1 ad 12; qtd. Eco 33)
The identity of being with the good, the beautiful, and the peaceful eliminated necessarily any breach between art and morality, therefore establishing an ideal view of reality, both uncreated and created, and of all human activities, formulated metaphysically, ethically, and aesthetically. (7)
Eco reminds us, nevertheless, that Saint Thomas "was devaluing the modus poeticus"; therefore, almost as a consequence, "the poets themselves evaded his intellectual influence; they initiated a new, mystical approach to poetic texts, a new way of reading which, through various avatars, was to survive down to our times." Therefore, while sharing the same "unified world view" characteristic of Saint Thomas's philosophy, Dante proposed a way of writing and reading poetry as "a new instance of prophetical writing [...] endowed with spiritual senses just as the scriptures are" (162).
Fundamentally in agreement with Scholastic philosophy and theology, Dante presents himself, first and foremost, as the poet of rectitude, seeking to view the whole of humankind and history from this ethical and poetic perspective. In this issue's first essay, "Dante's Two Beloveds: Ethics as Erotic Choice," Olivia Holmes argues that, in the Commedia and other works as well, Dante figures the good life as the right road, and he implicitly represents himself as a version of Hercules in bivio, choosing between virtue and vice. Drawing on classical, biblical, and romance sources, Dante conflates imagery connected with the voyage and the erotic choice: the two roads are viewed also as two ladies, and the downward pull of the vicious lifestyle is figured as an act of seduction. Dante's allegory is deeply layered, and the relation between the two ways and the two women (and thus between the individual's basic options) turns out also to be not one of strict opposition but rather of continuity and hierarchy: the protagonist passes by way of one lady to attain the other. The depiction of ethics as a choice between contradictory alternatives, Holmes argues, is ultimately resolved synthetically so that dualism is overcome and binary oppositions become progressive continuities.
Thus viewed, the ethical issue affects every individual, Everyman, since every one experiences some form of smarrimento, loss, and fault in the pursuit of the truly good, both individually and collectively. In fact, in Dante the individual's pursuit of the good is always situated within the collective and universal context of the whole of humankind in its past, present, and future history. In her essay entitled "Dante's Utopian Political Vision, the Roman Empire, and the Salvation of Pagans," Brenda Deen Schildgen focuses not so much on Dante's politico-ethical vision of the Empire but rather on the eternal destiny of those ancient spirits who either lived before Christ or lived after Him, but did not know Him. Dante accepted the Church Fathers' idea that the Roman Empire was chosen providentially for the unfolding of Christ's Redemption and humankind's salvation (Par. 6-7). In his attempt to see Divine Providence as history's guide, Dante chose to condemn the ancient poets' negative view of history, replacing it with his own visionary theory of a universal empire simultaneously and independently governed by a spiritual guide and a secular leader. Schildgen argues that Dante confined the greatest poets of antiquity, of whom he made himself a joyful associate, to Limbo because of their political blindness; at the same time, he specifically singled out for salvation other Romans or ancient spirits whom he made co-partners in his own vision. Dante's utopian political vision put faith in a history guided by Divine Providence, whereas, in reading his great literary forebears, he recognized that they did not share this hope.
Apart from their specific readings, these two essays on Dante bear out two principal points: first, Christianity's view that God's will to save all people is, at the same time, true and mysterious; and, second, every indvividual and the entire human community are charged with an ethical imperative, planted within each one of us while also transcending all of us, to seek and pursue the good. The voice of Dante, a self-proclaimed poet of rectitude, has been announcing a poetic gospel of justice and ethics for seven hundred years, and will do so for many more to come. In fact, Dante's prophetic voice and ethical gospel seem to appeal to English-speaking people, Americans in particular, in a very special manner.
It is well known that Dante's oeuvre is focused on his personal experience, especially his undeserved exile. For reasons mostly quite different from those of Dante, Petrarch also focuses on the experiences of the self, which is constructed poetically and spiritually. In his essay on "Scrittura e alterità in Petrarca," Massimo Lollini is interested in ethics as a point of intersection between philosophy and literature. Lollini studies how the notion of otherness in literature emerges in Petrarch's writings, which, for Lollini, constitute a necessary premise to modern critical discourse on alterity. In the writing process Petrarch discovers two main form of alterity, first of all, the alterity of the face of Laura, which he cannot "write" or present in its proper form (Canzoniere 308: 5-8). Lollini then argues that the ethical moment in the Canzoniere is located precisely in Petrarch's awareness of the impossibility to reduce the face of the other to a pure representation because in that face there is something infinite (Canzoniere 339: 9-14). The second fundamental dimension of alterity explored by Petrarch is related to his reflection on time and death, through which he introduces a notion of truth grounded not on the ontological and transcendental plane but on the ethical discourse. The poet is thus aware of the strict interconnection that links writing to time and tries in different ways to evade the notion of a crystallized subjectivity related to the hypostasis of the present created by the writing process. Petrarch points to the presence of the future in the present and to the alterity of an element always resistant to human reason, not only in his letter to future human beings (Posteritati), but also in his reflection on death as something irreducible to human control (Testamentum). Death is considered by Petrarch a "refugio" (Canzoniere 331: 63), something that creates the actual possibility of evading the hypostasis of time while opening the perspective of eternity: a different kind of temporality that disrupts the present moment of the human subject writing in solitude. Following Augustine (Confessiones 9: 10, 24) and developing a Christian notion of eternity and Resurrection, Petrarch situates the search for authenticity made by the human subject in the intentio directed toward the eschatological future (Triumphus eternitatis 67-69). Notwithstanding the human recta intentio, this search is destined to be open-ended and not to exhaust itself in writing. Petrarch's writing cannot truly break the hypostasis of the present and remove the ontological difference between divine eternity and human temporality. On the ethical ground, finally, he realizes all the difficulties implicit in the attempt at transcending the pragmatic context in which the poet lives and through which he tries to make sense of the world (Triumphus eternitatis 61-62).
3. Contemporary Literature: Valuable Shards of Lost Ideals
No attempt is made here to trace the development of ethics, and its interconnections with literature and criticism, from the time of Petrarch to the second half of the 20th century, on which most of the essays of this issue focus. According to historians of ethics, the Aristotelian tradition pervaded the study of ethics from the 14th to the 16th centuries, while strong interests in the ethical ideas of Platonism, Stoicism, and Epicureanism continued, oftentimes viewed independently from Christian moral ethics (Kraye 63-79). The Protestant Reformation, with its emphasis on the individual's ability to interpret the Bible independently and relate to God directly without any intermediary, and the Catholic Reformation, with its emphasis on the believer's need to be guided by the Church's leaders, were extremely influential in the formation of modern ethics from the middle of the 16th century until the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. In addition to the Protestant and Catholic Reformations, other historical changes affected the modern notion of ethics, such as the destructive wars waged in the name of religion, the discovery of the new world with its different customs, the emphasis on the enlightened human reason viewed as capable of guiding man, and ultimately the focus on the moral autonomy of the individual (Schneewind 80-95). Emmanuel Kant's (1724-1804) importance in the development of modern ethics is fundamental, as Schneewind states very succinctly: "Kant went beyond anyone else in asserting our moral autonomy" (93). (8) The 19th century, according to Schacht (106), begins with the radicalization of Kant's moral autonomy by Fichte (1762-1814) and ends with its radical rejection by Nietzsche (1844-1900), passing through Hegel (1770-1831), Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Marx (1818-1883), and Kierkegaard (1813-1855).
And yet, no sooner have we bidden farewell to the 20th-century's two world wars and countless other devastations waged in the name of a condemnable supremacy or abhominable tyranny, religious intolerance or sheer fanaticism, than the 21th century was struck at the very core of what so many of us view as the center of the civilized world. The horrific tragedy of September 11, 2001, invites us to reflect on the manner in which we must behave individually and collectively, reminding us that everything we do carries a powerfully ethical weight. It is my hope that the following essays will help us understand, in a small albeit significant manner, our ethical duty.
With "The Return of the Spiritual, with a Note on the Fiction of Bufalino, Tabucchi, and Celati," Charles Klopp offers the reader a kind of panoramic view of the second half of the 20th century, while looking for the lost shards of a perennial ethics. Klopp argues that one result, perhaps, of the recent implosions, transmogrifications, or movements to higher levels (as the cases may be) of both the Italian Communist and the Christian Democrat parties is that Italian intellectuals are now freer than they have been for many years to express themselves in public on such issues as religion and ethics. Judging from the fiction and the cultural commentary that has issued from Italy in the last decades, the anti-clerical, anti-Catholic, and sometimes anti-religious stances assumed by many Italian intellectuals as part of their opposition to Christian Democrat political hegemony have been replaced by different attitudes toward these matters. The political and materialist nature of much cultural discourse earlier in the century (whether or not this posture was accompanied by adherence to dialectical materialism as a philosophical or political creed) has given way to more spiritual considerations involving such matters as ethical behavior and the role that spirituality and the sacred play in human life.
Alberto Casadei situates his essay, titled "La narrazione etica: esempi dal romanzo italiano," within an insightful theoretical context, which ranges from the ancient philosophers to contemporary theorists and which he then proceeds to illustrate through several examples drawn from contemporary Italian narrative. After providing a useful survey of theorists concerned with ethics in literature, Casadei distinguishes between works of narrative that impose upon readers some kind of ethical reading and those that challenge readers for an ethical response without forcing a specific answer upon them. Casadei also emphasizes the importance for "i grandi romanzi [...] di esprimere un'etica possibile sulla base della capacità di rappresentare la morte," man's defining moment. In his view, the novel calls for a specifically ethical collaboration on the part of the reader-interpreter, who is confronted by a text that often times proposes a comprehensive reinterpretation of the meaning of human existence in ethical terms. By way of exemplifications, Casadei focuses on works by Giuseppe Pontiggia (Nati due volte), Camilla Baresani (Il plagio), Diego De Silva (La donna di scorta; Certi bambini) and Walter Siti (Scuola di nudo). For Casadei, these narratives either call for the narrator to provide his own interpretation or, in the cases of Pontiggia and Siti, offer an ethical construct that ultimately calls for the reader's ethical interpretation.
In "Consolo, Lévinas, and the Ethics of Postmodernist Storytelling," Norma Bouchard continues the previous essay's focus on contemporary narrative, concentrating specifically on Consolo and conducting her analysis from the perspective of Lévinas and the postmodern. Vincenzo Consolo - Bouchard argues - has often attributed an ethical status to his fictional writing. Yet none of his historical novels provides the reader with the totalizing ethical truths that are consistent with the conceptual framework of modernity. From Il sorriso dell'ignoto marinaio to Lunaria, from Retablo to the very recent Lo spasimo di Palermo, Consolo's narratives question the edifice of representation and the metaphysical claims upon which such an edifice rests. In short, despite Consolo's humanistic conception of writing, his novels weaken the epistemological guarantees that ground norms for moral behavior. Consolo's aesthetic practice, however, cannot be disregarded as a symptom of the insecurities of the present age, but prompts one to ask the following questions: Can a narrative that is traversed by the debunking of the conceptual framework of modernity still articulate an ethical call to responsibility and justice? Is the ethical imperative resilient enough to survive a post-rationalist episteme? If so, how can ethical writing be deployed after the de-legitimizing effect of postmodernist thought? In order to address these questions, Bouchard re-examines the ethical claims made by Consolo in the interview Fuga dall'Etna. She argues that the reciprocity between novelistic writing and ethical imperative is no longer located, for Consolo, in the so-called legislative and ethical truths of modernity, but it resides in a revision of the genre of the historical novel and its referential language. Such revision is reflected in Il sorriso dell'ignoto marinaio. While the open-ended plot of this 1976 historical novel dramatizes, without solving, ethical paradoxes, its pluralized and fragmented narrative discourse dissolves the stability of the enunciation, thereby suggesting that language has ceased to be a vehicle for the transmission of absolute truths. Nonetheless, since a humanistic commitment to justice and responsibility is a constant in Consolo's work, Bouchard outlines a conceptual framework to assess the ethical import of Il sorriso. She does so by combining Lévinas's post-rationalist description of the ethical moment with Newton's Lévinas-inspired model of ethical narratology. Bouchard then turns to a reading of Il sorriso and suggests that the ethical discourse of the novel emerges out of an intersubjective encounter that binds tellers and listeners, including us, the readers and critics of narrative. In the gaps created by the interruption of a continuous, stable flow of narration, and in the differential patterns of representation established by a plurality of voices and points of view, readers will articulate an ethical moment of signification. No longer founded upon a predetermined system of morality and judgment, this ethical moment arises out of the unconditional act of responsibility and obligation of one-for-the-Other.
At this juncture, after reading and introducing Bouchard's essay, I would like to reflect, however briefly, on the meaning of the other and/or Other as understood by 20th-century philosophers. At first reading, the dictionary's definition of the term - "A different or additional person or things. [...] People aside from oneself" (American Heritage Dictionary) - may not strike us as substantially different from the one provided to us by an encyclopedia of philosophy: "Other, the. Primarily understood as the other human being in his or her differences" (The Oxford Companion to Philosophy). In fact, the same encyclopedia helps us understand Lévinas's importance in any debate on the other and the ethics concerned with the other:
Levinas charged previous philosophy, including that of Husserl, with
reducing the Other to an object of consciousness and thereby failing
to maintain its absolute alterity: the radically Other transcends me
and the totality into whose network I seek to place it. According to
Levinas, by challenging my self-assurance the Other opens the question
of ethics. The priority of the Other becomes equivalent to the primacy
of ethics over ontology.
(The Oxford Companion to Philosophy 637)
At this point, I may state my satisfaction, at the very least, with the notion that "the radically Other transcends me" (how can we possibly know the other, since we so often are unable to know ourselves?) and also that "the Other opens the question of ethics." For, in fact, without the other I would necessarily live in total isolation, and neither I nor anyone else could possibly judge my ethos. At the same time, the issue of the other opens up the question of male-female relationships and the West's encounter with non-Western cultures. Finally, and most importantly, for all believers the truly Other is the Supreme Being, who not only opens the question of ethics but indeed provides the believers' ethical concern with its true foundation. (9) Several of the following essays return to the notion of the other as presented by Lévinas.
In "Ethics, Transcendence, and the Other: Milione of Marco Polo and Calvino's Le città invisibili," Steven Shankman argues that the possibility of dialogue with the Other haunts Calvino in Le città invisibili, which focuses on the relationship between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan derived from Milione. In Calvino's novel, the dialogue between Marco and the Khan hovers on the brink of the transcendence of the participants' egos. This transcendence, however, never quite happens because of the nature of language, which - Calvino suggests - remains within the bounds of representation rather than in its capacity to welcome and address the Other. Shankman then asks what we mean when we say "the Other." In contemporary critical theory, and particularly in postcolonial theory, the Other generally refers to the person who has been marginalized by the dominant power structure: women, persons of color, the disadvantaged and disempowered. Within this context, the word has a negative valence; namely, to turn that person into a thing, an object, to dehumanize her or him. Shankman, however, seeks to recover a different, positive meaning of the word Other, deriving it from the philosophical work of Martin Buber and particularly Emmanuel Lévinas. Within this context, to speak in the language of the phenomenological tradition, this positive alterity evades conceptualization, for conceptualization would automatically violate the otherness of the other subject, since it entails knowing and, hence, the assimilation of alterity by the ego that seeks to know. At the same time, the unknowable Other demands my responsibility.
Issues concerning violence and death are at the very core of any debate on ethics. In "A Matter of Injustice: Violence and Death in Antonio Tabucchi," Angela M. Jeannet examines the connections between this author, who is considered a major voice of postmodernism, and the phenomenological tradition. The immediacy of his characters' empathy with the humiliated and oppressed is based on the body's primacy in constructing human experience. Language is the privileged medium for conveying, however fragmentarily, that immediacy. Pursuing the reflection initiated by the European literature of the 1930s and 1940s, Tabucchi's fiction proposes the possibility of recognizing the Other as Other and at the same time as Self. Certainty is not possible, however, as the question asked by one of his characters reminds us : "Ma la scrittura può salvare da un'umiliazione incancellabile?" (222).
Several essays focus more specifically than others on the ethical challenges of the poet, the academic, the scholar, and the educator.
In Italy's cultural history, we recognize the privileged role of Dante as a poet-prophet. In the twentieth century, was it possible for any poet to play such a role? In "The Ethics and Pathos of Ungaretti's 'Ragioni d'una poesia,'" Thomas E. Peterson discusses the articles, talks, and essays from the period 1922 to 1969 that Giuseppe Ungaretti used to introduce his collected poems, entitled Vita d'un uomo ("Ragioni d'una poesia" lxi-xcv). Having lived his first twenty-four years in Alexandria, Egypt, Ungaretti came to Italy in 1912, then moved to France. With the outbreak of World War I, he returned to Italy and enlisted. After the war, he again resided in Paris before moving to Rome in 1920, then taught in Brazil in the late 1930s, and subsequently moved to Rome. Much of the "Ragioni" is a revisitation of these places, viewed as sites of poetry and revelation. While the critical literature on the poetry is extensive, little has been written on the essays and almost nothing on Ungaretti's autoexegesis. Peterson argues that here Ungaretti assumes the stature of the "poeta di oggi": the poet of his day and of destiny. While such a claim is not unfamiliar to readers of such poets as Carducci or d'Annunzio, in Ungaretti's case the monumental figure of the national poet or vate is turned upside down. Not a "hero" so much as a "nomad," Ungaretti is only a vate in the oracular sense of one who sees deeper into nature, both its realities and illusions. Ungaretti is a poet-prophet, a modern classic who would speak in unanimity with the people, a "man of pain," a wanderer and a visionary in an era of moral blindness.
Through an analysis of the role of technology in Primo Levi and Daniele Del Giudice, Nicoletta Pireddu, in "Towards a Poet(h)ics of Techne: Primo Levi and Daniele Del Giudice," explores the possibility of an ethical relationship able to transcend the divide between the aesthetic and the instrumental. La chiave a stella and Atlante Occidentale recodify technology by bringing it back to the Greek roots of techne as both craftmanship and art. But if technology works as an ethical device that promotes interpersonal connections through the act of making, Pireddu also examines the differences between Levi's and Del Giudice's conception of that relationship with the other. Whereas Levi endorses an ethics of responsibility founded upon an inevitable but ultimately unknowable alterity à la Lévinas, Del Giudice constructs an interdiscursive and inter-emotional dimension aiming at reciprocity and symmetry. La chiave a stella and Atlante Occidentale can hence be seen as two consecutive steps in the creation of what Pireddu defines as a poet(h)ics of techne, namely, an alliance of poiesis, poetics and ethics, fostered by technology.
Primo Levi's work constitutes, once again, the focus of another essay. In "How Much Home Does a Person Need? Primo Levi and the Ethics of Home," Robert S. C. Gordon examines the motif of the home as a marker of ethical practice and value played out across Levi's writing, both in testimony and beyond. For Gordon, Levi draws a map of an ethical universe in an attempt to question the radical evil of the Holocaust and also the ordinary vices and the ordinary virtues of our everyday lives. Furthermore, Levi's ability to look "at the Holocaust through the lens of ordinary values" and "the specific nature of the values in question [...] makes it possible for his work to resonate historically as a locus of confrontation between two faces of Europe's past: its rationalist, bourgeois, post-Enlightenment, progressive face and its dark, violent, totalitarian face [...]." Thus Gordon rereads Levi's autobiographical writing, his extraordinary dialogue-from-afar with Jean Améry and his narrative, as Levi contrasts the experiences and myths of exile and deportation with the anchored, memory-centered affect of home, using this contrast to forge his very particular ethical voice.
Sergio Parussa, in "Literature in Question: Figuring Auschwitz and Redefining Literature in Post-Holocaust Theatre," focuses on recent works by contemporary Italian and American playwrights, who represent European totalitarianism and the Holocaust as metaphors for modernity. In exploring the pedagogical, theoretical, and artistic implications of these figurative parallels, Parussa points out how, by using the Holocaust as a metaphor, theater questions the balance among aesthetics, ethics, and politics in a literary text. Parussa's considerations are worth the reader's close attention, especially what he writes about the language "reduced to stammering, noise, and silence by the brutality of concentration camps." In conclusion, Parussa argues that, in spite of Teodor W. Adorno's statement that "there cannot be any poetry after Auschwitz [...], Levi's work stands out as an example of trust in the act of writing, and as a challenge against those who would like the Holocaust to be unspeakable."
Giancarlo Gaeta, in "La scelta delle 'cose migliori'. Intellettuali e società di massa secondo Nicola Chiaromonte," focuses on this journalist's and critic's legacy, which is striking for the directness and force of the ethical imperatives it proclaims. Paraphrasing Chiaromonte (Rapolla, Potenza, 1905 - Roma, 1972), Gaeta asks what is left nowadays of a millenary culture. Chiaromonte's answer, albeit minimalist in its succinct appearance, is positive, although not absolutely categorical: "What is left, if it is left, is the ability to judge that what is good is good, what is evil is evil, and it cannot be otherwise (and one must not do anything to make it appear otherwise)" (Che cosa rimane 9; my trans.). Most appropriately, Gaeta concludes his essay by adding to Chiaromonte's ideas his own belief (which I trust all people of good will do share) that the truth exists and is desirable, and that the good is both a need and an aspiration rooted in each one of us.
Alessandro Montani, writing on "Manganelli, ovvero l'etica dell'intelligenza," proclaims, since the beginning, the problematic nature of any ethical considerations on Manganelli, who remained always faithful to the notion of "letteratura come menzogna." And yet, Montani convincingly shows not only Manganelli's ability to identify the peculiarly literary traits of a work but also, at the same time, to uncover and unmask in the written work the darkest areas of the human psyche and the monsters that dwell within humankind. Thus Montani argues that Manganelli employed such ethical and religious notions as sin in evaluating so-called literary works aesthetically as well as ethically and ontologically. For Manganelli - Montani reminds us - "La scrittura [...] è probabilmente un esercizio sul nulla, un'esplorazione del nulla, ma, appunto, non deve essere il niente." From this ethical statement derives the critic's ethical imperative: that of unmasking and denouncing the nothingness of literature whenever such is the case. Furthermore, Manganelli reminds us of "the infernal moment of literature," the centrality of this infernal moment, the immorality of literature in presenting it and of the critic in accepting it, instead of condemning it.
Francesca Parmeggiani, in "Morselli e il tempo," focuses on a fundamental issue at the basis of any ethical discourse: the function and meaning of time in our human existence. Through the analysis of time here and now (the ancients' hic et nunc), the rewriting of past history, and our looking ahead toward the future, Morselli seeks to construct another form of existence in which all individuals question the meaning of their own existence, while avoiding romantic, idealistic, and historicistic views, as well as what Morselli calls the "instancabile 'iificazione' delle cose (e degli esseri)"; namely, the "riduzione della realtà a mero prodotto del pensiero, che ha portato a un soggettivismo esasperato, fonte ora solo di insicurezza e angoscia esistenziale."
In a regrettably extremely timely essay, "Terrorism, Truth, and the Secret Service: Questions of Accountability in the Cinema of the 'stragi di stato,'" Giancarlo Lombardi seeks to probe the ethical responsibility of Italian film directors in rendering cinematically three tragic events in Italy's recent history: the bombing of Piazza della Loggia, the crash of the Itavia flight in Ustica, and the bombing of Bologna's railway station. Lombardi reminds us of the horror of terrorism: it strikes when least expected, chooses random targets out of ordinary people, and disseminates terror in entire populations. Lombardi argues that Italy experienced two forms of terrorism: left-wing terrorism, which disseminated terror through systematic knee-cappings, abductions, and homicides, while right-wing terrorism spread fear in the entire country through a series of bombings that caused countless victims. Focusing on three cinematic renderings of the tragic events mentioned above, Lombardi analyzes the encounter between ethics and cinema. Thus, he contends that, while cinema can hardly shed light on the darkness surrounding those mysterious episodes of recent Italian history, it may still accomplish a unique task: namely, proposing daring interpretations through which responsibility is inevitably assigned. Questioning moral accountability, placing blame, and asking viewers to bear testimony, this specific cinema fully engages in an ethical discourse rooted, according to Emmanuel Lévinas and other philosophers, in responsibility for and towards the other. Lombardi concludes with a statement that all of us fully accept: "Ethics teaches us not only to think about the other but also to act on behalf of the other, while prompting us to seek and question accountability."
Finally, I very much welcome the contribution of the only non-italianist scholar. Eugene TeSelle, in his "Engaged Intellectuals and the Politics of Culture: A Retrospective Analysis," invites all of us academics to reflect on other ways through which we may expand our mission as educators beyond its traditionally understood boundaries. TeSelle provides us with an excursus on the roles played by engaged intellectuals from antiquity to modern times. He points out the challenges of academics, who are often viewed as belonging to an ivory tower or an unrealizable world of ideas, when they decide to become directly engaged in matters concerning society at large. TeSelle presents the issue in poignant terms: "If the proper concern of intellectuals is with transcendent values, abstract ideas, theories with universal intent, or artistic representations that have potentially universal appeal, then how should this concern relate to particular social and political issues and to the intellectual's own location within history?" In TeSelle's view, there are three basic challenges facing intellectuals: "1) They may be so caught up in ivory-tower research or artistic self-expression as to be indifferent to politics; (2) when they do engage themselves in politics, they too often become dangerously fanatical; and (3) in all cases they may be deceived about both their independence and their lack of self-interest." Finally, TeSelle proposes an essential agenda of social commitment worth pursuing: that of the intellectual "who earns a living in academe but is involved in public issues on a 'volunteer' or 'part-time' basis." TeSelle's self-portrait is revealing and poignant for the three quite different public roles he has played in his adult life: those of professor, reverend, and citizen. This example of an academic outside Italian studies provides all of us Italianists, especially in North America, with valuable insights into possible contributions to the society at large outside the so-called ivory tower we inhabit.
4. Final Remarks
Faithful to the journal's longstanding tradition of open-mindedness, this 2001 issue has not tried to impose on its readers any specific perspective; at the same time, this issue's contributions, spanning several centuries of Italy's literary culture, challenge all of us by foregrounding the primacy of ethhics.
The tragic events of September 11, 2001, have made it clear to all of us that we, as educators, scholars of literature, and critics are called upon to view the ethical issue not just as one of the many elements of culture but as the foremost component of our lives, the society we live in, and our mission as educators.
This volume does not, and could not, touch upon all aspects concerning the theoretical, applied, and practical spheres of ethics. Concerning the theoretical sphere, further areas of investigation may focus on the position of ethics vis-à-vis the artistic and the aesthetic; (10) the relevancy of ethics in writing, publishing, and interpreting; the moral and social responsibilities of literature and hence of criticism; the historical development of ethical criticism; the ethical dimensions of specific theoretical approaches. Concerning the applied sphere, ethical hermeneutics must by necessity be applied to the analysis of literary texts throughout Italy's literary culture. Finally, in relation to the practical sphere, we must be willing to question ourselves ethically, ponder our ethical obligations as scholars, teachers, and educators, and be ready to carry out our mission in accordance with the principles of a well-informed, and well-formed, moral conscience, while respecting the other — that is, every human being — in the same manner as we want the other to respect us.
At the threshold of the third millennium, every one is, more than ever before, confronted by rapidly evolving technological advancements, the ongoing changes on the world's political map, and the profound transformation of individuals' and society's life as it was known until very recently. Furthermore, we have all been shocked by the most horrendous act of terrorism in American history, and look ahead with much trepidation and anxiety to a world that may be forever destabilized because of our inability to understand and respect each other. One must, therefore, all the more rely on every individual's ability to evaluate and question contemporary society's myriad choices, alternatives, and possibilities in the public and private spheres. Thence derives the essentiality, indeed the primacy of ethics: namely, the ability of individuals to discern and to pursue what everybody desires - the true bonum - for their physical, intellectual, and spiritual welfare, within the context of the ever expanding global community and a temporal frame of reference that goes beyond the ephemeral and therefore cannot but be teleological.
— The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Notes
1. The essays' summaries that appear in this introduction are mostly written by the authors themselves or are drawn from their contributions. I would like to thank all of them for making this issue possible.
2. Except the cases in which a philosopher distinguishes, for specific reasons, between ethics and moral, the two terms are synonyms in both Italian and English: "[...] 2. ethics. (used with a sing. verb). The study of the general nature of morals and of the specific moral choices to be made by a person; moral philosophy. 3. ethics. (used with a sing. or pl. verb) The rules of standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession: medical ethics. [... from Greek ethikos, ethical, from ethos, character.]" "moral [...] adj. 1. Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character [...]. 2. Teaching or exhibiting goodness or correctness of character and behavior [...]. 3. Conforming to standards of what is right or just in behavior; virtuous: a moral life. 4. Arising from conscience or the sense of right or wrong: a moral obligation. [...] - moral n. [...] 3. morals. Rules or habits of conduct, especially of sexual conduct, with reference to standards of right and wrong [...]. [Middle English, from Old French, from Lat. moralis, from mos, mor-, custom.]" (The American Heritage Dictionary) "Moral philosophy (or ethics)" (The Oxford Companion to Philosophy 940; 251; 587-91). "etica. [...] s. f. 1 (filos.) Parte della filosofia che studia i problemi e i valori connessi all'agire umano [...]. 2 Insieme delle norme di condotta pubblica e privata seguite da una persona o da un gruppo di persone [...]." "morale. [...] s. f. 1 Parte della filosofia che studia i problemi relativi alla condotta dell'uomo. SIN. Etica. 2 Complesso di consuetudini e norme che regolano la vita pubblica e privata [...]" (lo Zingarelli).
3. To illustrate the uncomfortable sense one may experience when confronted by the ethical issue, I cannot but refer to the anecdote told by a Spanish scholar, Bandera, dealing with the sacred in The Poem of the Cid. The distinguished scholar to whom Bandera had submitted his manuscript could not help feeling a form of peculiar allergy vis-à-vis the approach to the sacred pursued by Bandera ("Esta cosa me da alergia. No lo puedo remediar" 1).
4. For the history of ethics, here is but a brief bibliographical list: Brinton; MacIntyre; pertinent entries in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
5. The introduction to the 1991 issue of AdI and its many essays, devoted to the modern and postmodern, may be useful to the reader who seeks to understand the notion of the postmodern in relation to Italy. The study of ethics within the notion of postmodernity is a hotly debated issue, whith sharp criticisms coming from all sides: those who believe in an ethics of postmodernity (e.g., Wyschogrod), those who believe in the individual's capability of "inventing right and wrong," and yet maintain the possibility of a "secular religion" (e.g., Mackie), and those who accuse postmodern theories of what they perceive as the moral decay of our time (e.g., Makolkin). I have found the most balanced positions in authors I would characterize as Christian thinkers (MacIntyre; Desmond). I refer to these authors for a bibliography on the subject matter.
6. I refer the reader to Eco's book for an in-depth analysis of these issues and further bibliography.
7. The Old and New Testaments add another transcendental, i.e., justice, to those mentioned above: God and His Son, Christ, provide peace and justice to all people of good will (see pertinent entries in Vocabulaire de théologie biblique). For the identity of justice with rectitude ("rectitudo actus"), see St. Thomas 1-2 q. 21 3c; q. 46 7 ad 2; etc.
8. A recent translation of Kant's thought on ethics, Lectures on Ethics, is now available.
9. For Lévinas's relation to religion and thus God, I refer to the section "Religion" in The Levinas Reader (166-234).
10. For the history of aesthetics, I refer to the bibliography in Eco's volume.
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